reality
by letsplayscrabble
Summary: He's trying to keep himself together but the instant she boarded the plane he realized he was slipping. She's trying never to look back but the only home she's ever truly known are his ocean blue eyes and warm embrace and now it's a cold apartment in New York.
1. Chapter 1

[part 1]

That night when he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she'd left, that she'd emptied the apartment he'd used to call home, that she'd taken her adorable dimples that settled in the crook of her cheek and her warm hazel hues right along with her and onto that blasted plane he drank himself into somewhat of an oblivion. He returned to his huddle of friends with their forlorn expressions and nearly empty bottles of booze, ducking his head so maybe, _just maybe_ they wouldn't see the tears welling at the corners of his eyes or the way his jaw was clenched in irritation because if he would've had just two minutes- two _fucking_ minutes in front of her to plead his case and maybe flash the box with the diamond that had been burning a hole in his back pocket for the last few days she would still be here. She would still be here with her tiny fingers trailing patterns up and down his thigh, out of the sight of their colleagues as his heartbeat quickened in anticipation and tossing back a few pulls of his beer but he wouldn't have minded. Because on one of those tiny little fingers there would've been his mother's diamond- a promise to her that he would love and cherish every single part of what made her who she was for the rest of their lives.

He would love the way she mumbled his name in frustration whenever he shifted out of her arms in the middle of the night, trying to make at least a few inches of space between the both of them in case he flailed and screamed and couldn't separate reality from the dark depths of his memories fast enough. In the end her mumbles always got to him and so instead he stayed awake, running his fingers through the waves of her hair while committing every last detail of her face to memory, as if he would ever be able to forget the way her lips always seemed to curl up on the right side in an unconscious grin or maybe even a hint of a smirk, or the array of colors he could spot in her pupils whenever her eyes flickered open in an early morning daze or even when she was glaring daggers when her fiery temper spiked. Even then he would have to smile because she was just as beautiful to him when she was enraged.

He would love the way her legs felt around his bare torso when they were lost in the feeling of each other, the way she tightened her hold and tangled her fingers in his hair as if she needed him closer, still. Or the way her lips felt trailing up and down his neck, and then his collarbone, and then down his stomach and if there was a heaven he was pretty damn sure this is what his would be- the feeling of her all over his bare skin, the feeling of her hot breaths in the crook of his neck, the way it felt to be inside of her, the sound of her screaming his name at her peak and sending him barreling over the edge right along with her.

He would love the way her go-to dinner was a microwaveable pizza and a box of macaroni and cheese with a cold one from the refrigerator, no matter how many times he offered to cook. He would continue to love the fact that she always left him half of the box of each and always had an extra few bottles in the fridge stashed away just for him, leaving him plenty of room to cuddle up right next to her on the couch to watch a rerun of a baseball game, or a football game, or if nothing else was on some design show on HGTV and he would always love the little hints she dropped about wanting a porch that wrapped around her entire house or a swing overlooking a lake in the backyard to hold her babies on and he would continue to love the way it felt to take her in his arms after he finished his meal and whisper in her ear that _someday, somehow,_ he would give it all to her. And then he would fall even more in love with her grin and the slight pink tinge in her cheeks because maybe, _just maybe,_ she would actually let him.

But he was here and she was not and there wasn't anything left of her in Chicago to love anymore and that thought alone made him snatch the last of Will's drink from in front of him and though his brother's brow furrowed and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat he didn't utter a word and for that Jay was thankful. He noticed then the rest of the team had cleared out and maybe that was a blessing because he had a feeling he was about to make an embarrassing ass of himself and frankly he didn't want to look any more pathetic in their eyes than he already did. Sitting here with a ring and his hope and his firm belief that she wouldn't really board that flight without looking him the eye but as the clock winded it's way past midnight a sick feeling had settled in his gut because he finally had to face the fact that she had. That he wasn't worth a goodbye or an explanation or _hell,_ even so much as an answered phone call. He would have settled for hearing her voice on the other end, or maybe just her erratic breathing and then he would've swallowed every last one of his selfish reasons for keeping her here, right here in this city with him, and given her the last few words of comfort he knew she needed because he'd spent months learning the ins and the outs of her head and how her mind always tended to want to do the best for other people instead of for herself. _Go. You're making the right decision. I am proud of you_.

But no- _he hadn't even been worth that_.

Flinging a few bills out of his pocket to cover the tab, he began to gather himself enough to make it completely off of the stool and out the front door of the joint before he heard his brother's pounding of footsteps behind him and then a muttered 'are you okay?' rattling in his ear drums, and all he could manage was a feeble shake of his head as he finally admitted it. As he finally admitted that her leaving had crushed him, had left him afraid to walk into the bullpen and find her empty desk and her empty rolling chair that she'd stolen from him a couple months back, claiming his was 'more comfortable' and 'looked better' on her side of the room and of course he'd relented and let her keep it because that sexy, teasing glint in her eyes had made him weak in the knees and he never really did like to argue with her. He was afraid to use his spare key to her place and find it barren and empty and he was afraid that if he stayed long enough and breathed in deep enough traces of her scent would still reach his nostrils and send him straight over the edge into despair, and heartbreak, and irritation. Because even though they'd always told each other they'd have each other's backs, she hadn't given him the chance. She hadn't given him the chance to hear her out and to try and understand her angle and her thought process and why in the hell she felt she needed to pack up her things and move to New York and not even give him a goodbye.

He allowed Will to lead him to his car and guide him into the passenger seat because at this point the world was spinning and his vision was foggy and in all honesty he wanted to curl up and sob but he wouldn't because he was trained as a soldier and trained to lock it up tight and it was so firmly ingrained in his thought process he had a hard time reminding himself feeling what he felt was acceptable, understandable even. And maybe when he was sure he was alone he'd let a few tears fall and let his right hand curl up into a fist and slam into something hard to welcome the sudden bursts of pain because the aching of his hand would be better than this dull ache settling in his heart and Will seemed to understand as much because he brought him back to his old apartment- the one he'd moved out of when he'd moved in with Nina- and flipped on all the lights and mumbled something about 'extra blankets in the hall closet' before he had disappeared down the hallway and then Jay heard a door slam and he thought maybe he should be considerate and ask what the hell they were doing here and not at Will's girlfriend's place but thought better of it because his head hurt and he wasn't sure he could form the right strain of words into a sentence.

So he slipped out of his work boots and unhooked his gun from his belt loops and placed it safely well out of reach until morning, when the sun would come up and the world would be a little less hazy and his days without her pointed gazes or raised eyebrows from across the bullpen would have completely disappeared.

He settled down on the couch then, yanking a blanket down off the armrest to pull over his shoulders, his fingers grasping the velvet box in his back pocket before he let his eyes drift all the way closed and he dared one last look at it, the diamond glinting if he tilted it just right and he had to smile through the single tear that dripped down his cheek because it would've looked beautiful sliding onto her finger but now he couldn't help but be angry at her for leaving him behind with all of the love he had left in his heart to give her and all the words he didn't get a chance to say.


	2. Chapter 2

**\- I hope you all are enjoying my new fic, 'reality'! Please leave me a review or any thoughts and comments you may have. I'm very excited to continue this work for you all. (:**

She landed late that same night, welcomed by a nearly empty airport and a nearly pitch black sky courtesy of the few stars that she could barely see glistening above the looming skyscrapers and maybe she should've been accustomed to the constant bustle of a city and the feeling of how undeniably small she felt roaming the crowded streets beneath those towering buildings but all she felt was overwhelmingly _alone_.

This place didn't feel like home and this place didn't feel as if it was going to allow her to change the world by ridding it of disgusting terrorists and the twinge of hope that'd she'd clung to on the plane that everything would feel right when her feet finally touched the ground had vanished. She clutched Hank's gift of the dog tags to her chest, trying to find a sense of comfort in the cool metal against her warm skin and trying to ignore the sudden urge in her gut to whirl right back around and sleep in the airport for the rest of the night and board the first plane back to Chicago in the morning and back to his crystal blue eyes and the dash of freckles across his nose but then she remembered that she couldn't and no matter how hard she hoped and wished otherwise her and Jay were not what they used to be.

She recalled her promise to her fatherly figure, the only official goodbye she'd had the guts to make within the confines of his office, the promise of _never looking back_ and to keep going forward and so she steeled herself, wrapping her fingers around the handle of her suitcase and weaving her way through the last few stragglers of jet-lagged tourists that were huddled near the front entrance to get to the sidewalk, hailing a taxi and only letting some of the tension out of her shoulders and out of her jaw and out of her fingers as she rattled off her new address to the driver and slammed the door shut behind her as he began to head towards her unfamiliar apartment. Her unfamiliar apartment that would still have four walls and would still have one bedroom but only one person living in it. Her unfamiliar apartment that was purchased fully furnished as a thanks for taking her FBI-affiliated, cushy new job and as a necessity because she couldn't bear the thought of seeing _their couch_ anywhere other than exactly where they'd put it and she couldn't bear the thought of her bed anywhere else than exactly where they'd used to share it or the flat screen anywhere else than where Jay had excitedly mounted it on the wall after she's finally given into his begging but to be honest she would've handed him absolutely anything he asked for in this world if she would get to witness the way his eyes would light up and his lips would turn up into the adorable crook of a smile.

Her hazel orbs watched in almost a daze as the flickers of light from the surrounding city dashed past her window, trying to make a mental note of the names displayed on the street signs and trying to get a feel for the city as a whole but no matter how hard she tried or how hard she searched not one piece of it felt right. Nothing would ever quite feel the same as walking her Chicago streets, but _damn_ she'd been hoping for something, **anything** to let her know she had made the right decision and had ended up in the right place.

The cab dropped her off at her apartment building a few minutes later, and after she tossed a few bills and a generous tip in the driver's direction she braced herself before walking the few steps to the entrance of the place, pressing the 'up' button for the elevator far too many times because she was impatient and cranky and exhausted even though she was well aware of the fact that the extra slamming of her fingers against the thing wouldn't make it move any faster.

Finally, it reached the lobby and she rode it in silence all the way up to the eighth floor, trying not to fidget and squirm or maybe burst into a mess of frustrated tears, stepping off to be greeted with an overwhelming quiet and dark colored wooden doors and a plush carpet an awful shade of blue and though she tried not to grimace and she tried not to hate it the ill feelings had already settled in her stomach as she rolled her suitcase down the hall to room eight twenty-two and turned her key in the lock. The only key that anyone had to her place and suddenly she really wished that she had someone she cared enough about to give a spare too.

Shaking her head and berating herself for even letting herself think of him when she was nothing other than lonely, she let the door click shut behind her before making a beeline for the couch, her head instantly falling to a pillow and her knees instantly curling up to her chest and it'd only been two hours and thirty-six minutes since she'd left Chicago but she wondered whether he had managed to fall asleep tonight or if it was one of the bad days, where she used to be able to only get him to sleep by humming an old lullaby she remembered of Camille's, the sweet tune lulling him into unconsciousness while his head rested on her chest listening to the constant beating of her heart and feeling the steady rise and fall of her chest while she breathed. She wondered if he'd had a few cold ones with the rest of the unit and maybe even Hank because she was certain by now Jay knew she was gone and she hadn't had it in her to face him and maybe their boss could offer him the comfort or the explanation that she couldn't allow herself to give. She wondered if he would pick up the phone if she called, if she dialed the number she knew by heart and listened for the smooth sound of his voice on the other end of the line but when she reached for her cell her hands and her fingers were shaking far too badly for her to carry through with it. _It's better this way. To cut ties_. _He'll understand someday._

But her heart won out over her head and the sweet release of sleep wouldn't come to take her away, and so she found herself typing out his name and then a quick 'i'm sorry' and hitting 'send' before she could think twice about it, her gaze lingering far too long waiting for those three little dots to appear on the screen because she was desperate for a response. Desperate to know that there was a piece of him that understood why she was here and not there, desperate to know that he wasn't going to shut her out because it'd taken so long for them to let each other in. But perhaps that didn't count for much anymore since she'd boarded the plane and left him behind.

Erin waited but his reply didn't come, and she stopped herself from throwing the phone at the wall in a fit because she deserved this. She deserved his silence and his anger and his avoidance because this time it was states that separated the two of them and not just a few city streets.

This time she'd told herself she wasn't going back and she'd meant it because there was no way in hell he'd understand her saving her mother and there was no way in hell she was going against her promise to Hank.

She was certain Jay wouldn't understand how she'd put her mother's safety and well-being above all else in her life _yet again_ and as much as she despised herself for doing so she couldn't stop it. She was certain he would demand she come back and demand she explain what in the hell she was thinking but sitting here, on a cold and unwelcoming couch in the heart of New York she still couldn't find the words to explain why Bunny always came before what she wanted and hoped and prayed for. Because that was her weakness- putting others above herself and maybe that came from having grown up with next to nothing, and maybe that came from the fact that she was absolutely terrified the second that she was pleased and content and safe her mother would come and tear it all into shambles or that she'd fuck it up herself because she'd never had much good in her life and she was scared to death that she'd ruin every wonderful thing that came near her, like some kind of disease. And even though Camille had used to spend days a time coaxing those words of self-hatred out of her head and out into the open Erin had never quite grown to accept the fact that she deserved anything besides the slaps across the face her father used to deliver or the jangling of a full pill bottle from the hands of her scheming and manipulative mother.

Her phone screen lit up which snapped her out of her daze, her hand flailing for the device before she realized it was Hank with the words 'you've got this, kiddo. I believe in you' and so then she allowed a few tears to fall, realizing she was here in this new place with only one fellow FBI agent in her corner when she'd used to have so many more and maybe this counter terrorism job was supposed to be one that some waited their entire lives to get but maybe she would've done just fine as just a cop back in Chicago, so long as she had the promise of her favorite blue eyes waiting for her to come home to.


	3. Chapter 3

**\- Thank you for all of your support so far! It means the world. This next part is in Jay's head and it's very raw and difficult and most importantly real. Please let me know what you think.**

X

He remembered waking up just as the rays of sunlight began to peek past the curtains, the smell of burnt toast and scrambled eggs hitting his nostrils and even though Will was trying his hardest and the best that he knew how, Jay wanted absolutely nothing to do with the gesture. His head hurt and his heart hurt even worse, and the ping of his phone and the sight of her name flashing across the screen far too early for him to process what it meant wasn't helping him conquer his raging hangover in the slightest.

He made a beeline for the shower, scrubbing his skin raw under the scalding hot water with some fruity scented shampoo that Will must've thought was a good idea, before he remembered that hot showers had always been her thing and her routine and how she always used to stick out her bottom lip in a pout when he suggested a cooler one when he would step into the steam along with her to press up against her tiny frame on mornings when there was no rush to get into work, and then he couldn't bring himself to stand there any longer.

Wrapping what he hoped was a clean towel around his waist, Jay wandered back into the kitchen, droplets of water falling off of his bare skin, intending to ask if there were any clothes lying around he could throw on for the day but the doctor was gone, a note scribbled out in nearly unlegible handwriting on the kitchen counter explaining a bus crash and the need for all hands on deck at the hospital far earlier than he'd anticipated. And instead of bothering to inquire over the phone and fumble through an awkward apology for ending up obliterated on his couch Jay went about making a cup of coffee, hoping the lack of sweetener would sharpen his thoughts and ease the pounding in his head and maybe he could've learned a thing or two from the way she used to crinkle up her nose in disgust at the way he poured packet after packet of sugar into his mug back when their morning routines had been in sync and she was still here and not there but with a bitter chuckle he remembered it was far too late for any of that now, and his morning routine was no longer her concern.

And he could've lied to himself right then and there and pretended that the idea of not knowing what hole in the wall cafe she found to make her morning coffee on the way to work, or not knowing what time she'd finally turn off the black and white musical she'd come to love because of Camille, or what time she'd finally shuffle down the hall and to her bedroom with a blanket held firmly in place over her shoulders because there wasn't a time when she wasn't freezing, especially in only a baggy t-shirt which if he was lucky was one she'd stolen from his drawer wouldn't kill him. **But it would**. Slowly at first as he tried to occupy his head with thoughts of some sick bastard who'd kidnapped a girl for nothing more than the pure thrill of it or a bloodthirsty gang member who had fired a few too many bullets down on Western Avenue and then a bit more urgently when he drove back to a fridge full of six packs and leftover Chinese and none of her peach yogurts.

But eventually the fog of his hangover cleared enough for him to go rummaging for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt somewhere in the depths of his brother's closet and after tossing a spray of cold water on his face and running his fingers through his unruly hair and wincing at the stubble she had always hated when it would brush against her cheek in the mirror he was on his way to the bullpen and the questioning stares and the mumbled apologies of his team when he caught them looking, far too exhausted to explain himself even if he was pretty damn certain they all knew exactly why he looked a mess.

Hank was the first to break the uncomfortable silence, only giving him a nod and maybe a sympathetic hint of a grin before launching into the case they had caught- a gas station robbery connected to one of the gangs running rampant in the city with a family dead and far too many suspects on the loose. He allowed himself one look across the room at her empty desk, at the black screen of the computer and the spotless, barren top of the thing, no longer buried underneath mounds of unfinished reports or CI files or even the remains of her combo meal she swore she'd kick the habit of but her dimples always appeared full-force whenever he had managed to sneak away to grab her one because she had a terrible habit of forgetting to eat anything when she was caught up in a case, and he'd always learned to cut off her cups of coffee at three and replace the caffeine with an actual meal by lunchtime so her hands wouldn't begin to shake.

And then came Al's quick squeeze of his left shoulder, bringing him back to that dead family and the G Park Lords because Atwater was in the middle of explaining he got a hit with one of his CI's and one of their gang members had been spotted near the crime scene and though his blue eyes fell onto the elder detective's face and he managed a nod to clear his head of all things _her_ , Olinsky just gave him a sad hint of what was supposed to be a smile because he knew. But now was not the time to falter.

By the end of the day the pounding of his head had returned and the growling in his stomach had worsened but a man by the name of Demarco Reuben was behind bars for the robbery gone wrong and the death of those innocents, and he was trying really hard to make it feel like a win but this victory didn't come with the sweet sound of her laughter during a celebratory drink down at Molly's or the tiny hint of a satisfied grin that turned up a corner of her mouth whenever she beat him in filling out the final paperwork because of course they'd had to make it into a competition and of course she always found a way to best him on the job.

He'd caught Hailey studying him far too often as the day went on, and sometimes she would inch closer as if she wanted to ask him something but his glares had kept her far enough away or at least hesitant enough not to say anything and for that he was grateful- no one had had the balls to ask him straight up what Erin leaving meant and if Erin leaving was forever and though he had a feeling Hank was the only one with any sort of an idea, Jay was having the hardest time accepting it.

And so he found himself mumbling a 'yeah sure whatever' when Ruzek invited him out for drinks with Kevin and he found himself mumbling 'another one' later on into the night to Hermann and he didn't stop until that buzz was back, numbing the pangs somewhere deep inside his chest because he was finally starting to realize that her empty desk wasn't going anywhere because she had a different one, all the way in New York.

"Buddy, slow down. You've had like six and I'm nursing number two," Adam murmured, just close enough to his ear that he could feel the man's hot breath and for whatever reason, that pissed him off. Who was he to tell him when he couldn't hold his alcohol? Who was he to think he understood what he was _fucking_ going through with the girl he was dead set on marrying far too many states over and with far too nice of a job for him to ever ask her to leave?

And so he shoved the man off of him with a trained soldier's ferocity and Ruzek went flying to the floor and he caught Hermann's eyes widening in surprise because Jay Halstead wasn't one who didn't keep himself together and then Kevin had his arms pinned behind him and he didn't even bother to struggle because he instantly felt sick to his stomach at what this heartache and the liquor and even her leaving had turned him into.

"I'm going Kev," he managed to whisper and the bigger man nodded his head, giving him a stern pat on the back and though he made it out of there without letting a tear fall in front of all of the stares and the gaping, he was damn near close. Damn near close to finally answering her text message and telling her never to speak to him again and damn near close to packing up his bags to take the next flight to New York because even though his feet one after the other in front of him were a bit blurry, and even though his fingers kept fumbling over the numbers as he tried to call Will to come pick his sorry ass up, he was still sure that he loved her with absolutely everything that he had to give.


	4. Chapter 4

**\- Digging into not only Erin and Jay's past together (because I so wish we would've gotten to see more domestic moments on the show) but their childhood has been such an interesting journey while writing this and I can promise there's more coming. Here is next Erin-centered piece and I hope you all enjoy. Please leave me reviews as I love to hear what you think.**

 **X**

When she was little, she'd used to have dreams of living up in a tower. A tower much like the story of Rapunzel that she'd once read during story-time when her mother still cared enough to send her to school, with her long golden hair and her perfect, handsome prince who came to save the day and whisk her off to a happily ever after. She used to squeeze her eyes shut and clench her hands into tiny little fists and thought maybe if she wished hard enough, if she _believed_ hard enough, she'd wake up the next morning away from the punches her father delivered to her gut whenever she didn't bring him another bottle of beer fast enough, or the burns from his cigarette butts all the way up and down her arms she'd earn whenever she complained about being hungry. And maybe, if she was _really_ lucky a fairy godmother would replace her real one, who spent more time in a drugged up daze lying on the tile of the bathroom floor than signing up for parent teacher conferences or packing a sack lunch or kissing her daughter's cheek goodbye before she stumbled over her shoes that were far too big for her feet to get to the bus on time before it left her and her raggedy clothes, and her ripped-up plastic sack of a backpack in the dust.

But looking out over the New York skyline from her shiny and sleek twenty-third floor office, she realized she had gotten her tower. A room in the tower of the FBI field office in Manhattan to be exact, with a sleek job as a special agent in counterterrorism and plenty of cases to choose from at her fingertips as to what bad guy she wanted to see burn first- but her tower wasn't all that she had thought it would be. Perhaps the appeal of it was lessened by the uniform of a scratchy pinstriped pantsuit, or her own personal quality coffeemaker perched on the corner of her desk that didn't brew quite the same as the fussy one back in Chicago, where if she bumped it just right she could get the thing to dribble out a few ounces more, or maybe it was the way no one really raised their heads out of their computers to say 'hello' or 'good morning' or to even answer her question as to where to find the damn restroom.

She felt like a fish out of water, like she was already drowning and it was only her first day and four hours in and normally she would've dialed up her favorite blue-eyed ex-Army Ranger for a pep talk and a few reassuring words and maybe even an 'I love you' but they were nowhere near that anymore and hadn't been since he shoved a handful of t-shirts into a duffel bag and ignored her pleas of 'I can handle it' and so she tossed her phone into the back of a desk drawer with perhaps a bit too hard of a thud, because she was really and truly on her own and her fingers kept hovering over his name as if she'd somehow work up the nerve to call him and to hear his voice on the other end. But she knew somewhere in the back of her head that she wouldn't, that she _couldn't-_ because she'd left without a goodbye on purpose, because one word out of his mouth or one glance into his sky blue orbs would've kept her there with him and without a job and standing right there on the sidelines because the board's decision more than likely hadn't gone in her favor as much as she had hoped and prayed for otherwise.

"Lindsay."

She averted her steady gaze from the window, from the bustling city going about its business far below her feet to the woman standing in her doorway, Agent Jennifer Spencer- the woman who had flown all the way to Chicago to recruit her and though she had her sneaking suspicions she hadn't bothered to voice yet, hadn't bothered to inquire why Spencer had appeared at just the right moment when she was floundering and needed help and needed out. Besides, it wasn't as if she had anything left to fall back on. Her life in Chicago was in shambles.

"You're needed in the boardroom. Time to hit the ground running." The woman flashed a wink and what was more than likely supposed to be a comforting smile but it just made Erin's insides twist. Here a case meant controlling WMDs and stopping a sick soul from blowing up an entire city and though her hands shook with anticipation the weight of it all hadn't quite hit her until this very moment, standing two steps away from the wooden oak door that would open to reveal a room of uniformed agents trained and lethal and far more intense than anything she'd ever experienced before. And she would do anything right then and there to hear Hank's gravelly murmurs of assurance or the squeeze of Jay's hand wrapped in her jittery fingers but she'd broken at least one of those bridges and she'd been the one who shoved the gun into the bastard's mouth and standing here with no one to lean on wasn't anyone's fault except her own.

They busted the home of Marcus Hemmings by lunchtime, a hacker becoming well known in the city for continuous breaches of the security of major banks and businesses, slowly working his way up to the government buildings as they'd found blueprints and a list of top secret codes for the state capitol building. The FBI had been monitoring his contacts and had tailed him to an undercover meeting in some alleyway with a man from overseas though Erin hadn't learned exactly from where- though by the way Agent Spencer's jaw remained tight even after the hacker was hauled away in an armored vehicle she figured there was more to the story than anyone was letting on.

"I can handle it-"

"That's not the issue here, Erin. _Drop it_." She cast a pointed look into the rearview mirror and Erin began to nibble on her bottom lip because maybe she'd gotten in over her head and maybe she suddenly missed hearing his mumbled complaints from the passenger seat because she'd almost always insisted sitting behind the wheel instead of being shoved to the back like a scolded child like she was in this very moment and she knew that it was only her first day and perhaps she was being unreasonable and irritable because homesickness had eaten away at her all night long instead of the sweet escape of unconsciousness but she was also under the impression she'd been brought here for a reason and this felt nothing like any sort of inclusion. She caught the man in the passenger seat trying and failing to hide his smirk and it took everything in her not to blow it, not to lose her cool and rip him a new one because if there was one thing she hated about working on this side of the law and this high up on the totem pole it would be the constant belief that men were better equipped to handle it than females, as if she wasn't competent or qualified enough to be carrying the badge. _Damn did he have another thing coming_. She made a mental note to stop in and introduce herself later in the day, to find his office and to look him in the eye and put a name to that atrociously smug expression and wipe it right off of his features.

But when they returned to the field office, he went one way and Agent Spencer dragged her another, her brisk pace never faltering and her mouth not moving once in any sort of an explanation and so Erin did her best to follow, weaving in and out of the crowd milling in the opposite direction until they finally came to rest at the elevator, the light above the door signaling they had quite a few floors left to wait.

"I can't help you if I don't know what's going on, Spencer," Erin hissed through her teeth, realizing blowing her top wouldn't be the best first impression on her superiors but she was through with taking a literal back seat on this case. It just wasn't how she had been taught to operate.

"There's been a bigger breach in national security than we had anticipated," Agent Spencer murmured, her eyes remaining trained on the descending light and her voice remaining barely above a whisper and Erin had to lean in close to catch the strain of words falling past her lips. And though they sent her reeling, she kept her features collected, realizing they were out in the open and that this may have been the FBI building but suddenly she was questioning if even that was keeping them protected.


	5. Chapter 5

A few weeks had passed since the incident at Molly's and he could still feel himself slipping. He was going backwards and not forwards and he was exasperated because all she'd done was get on a plane and he'd handled worse than that. He'd handled a gushing bullet wound to the chest of one of his buddies, clamping it down with his own fingers and screaming fiercely to keep the man conscious while they waited for help. He had handled the feeling of his mother's ice cold skin against his cheek as she weakly tugged on his shirt sleeve to bring him to an embrace because the cancer had finally gotten her, had taken the most remarkable woman that he had ever known away from him. He'd handled stepping tentatively off the plane and into the airport, to the expectant glances of the wives and the girlfriends and the children of the men he'd come to call brothers, the guttural screams when some realized their loved one hadn't made it home or the tears welling in their eyes as he broke the news because he'd volunteered to be the one to do it. Had scribbled their names down in a journal he kept stashed under his pillow because no one deserved to die invisible over there in that sliver of hell. No one deserved to die with the fear that their loved ones would never know what happened to them, with that sick ounce of hope or 'what if' swirling around in their heads when there was nothing left to actually wish for.

"Jay? Were you finished?" He blinked a few times, his vision coming back into focus to the men surrounding him in a circle, on some shitty fold out chairs they'd found in a storage closet in the basement of that Catholic church. One man that didn't have any fingers on his left hand, another without any legs now confined to a wheelchair. One who was so jumpy and jittery and paranoid he couldn't sit still for more than two minutes and thirteen seconds- Jay had counted, and like clockwork he watched as the man jolted out of his chair and wrung his hands and then began to pace, his dark emerald eyes scanning the room as if a sniper would appear at any moment to end them all and sometimes if Jay studied him long enough the hairs would stand up on the back of his neck and his fingers would tighten on the bottom of the chair and all he could see were scattered bodies of dead soldiers at his feet and a cowering little boy in the corner of his family's one-room hut and then the splatter of his blood on the wall when he'd taken the child's life away, under an order he had no place or authority to refuse.

"Y-yeah, Alec. I'm done." And with that he fell back into his trance, half-heartedly listening to the woes of his fellow soldiers who lived a life much harder than his own, who couldn't even walk on their own damn two feet and here he was acting as if he couldn't handle the mess in his head without help, without spilling and laying his thoughts bare when these men were far worse off than he could ever imagine or completely comprehend. But he'd promised himself he would do this, at least once a week- except as of late it'd turned into three. Three days out of seven in a week spent in that unairconditioned church basement explaining how he couldn't really sleep at night because he felt this sickening sense of guilt for every breath that he took, that he had been lucky to return home to an older brother and a selfish bastard of a father when some had left their wives and their sons and their daughters and he explained how some nights, how without her warmth right there next to him to pull him back he considered ending it, floating up and away and somewhere, **anywhere** other than _here_. He forced out how he barely let himself feel, how he was having a hell of a time letting people in, letting people close, because he was so goddamn afraid of losing them, conditioned to always be prepared for the worst and then how exhausted he was of constantly walking on eggshells. Of thrashing around in his sleep and going right back there, to that ditch shoulder to shoulder with his soldiers or to wandering a nearly deserted village on a mission he wasn't allowed to so much as speak of, killing and slaughtering people and watching the life fade out of their eyes because they were a threat but he couldn't really find it in him to believe that they deserved it.

And still, Jay found himself going backwards. Hank had called him on it- motioned him into his office right after Ruzek came limping into the bullpen with a hesitant glance in Jay's direction and a quick nod of his head because of course he was forgiven. And then came Hank's gruff inquiries, asking if he was sleeping at night or downing enough booze to send his liver straight to shit and Jay managed to keep his mouth shut because he knew the man wasn't finished and that he was rightfully pissed with possibly a hint of concerned. And he knew that he needed to pull himself together because this wasn't cutting it for Intelligence, this wasn't cutting it because _she wasn't coming back_.

Which was why he was still trying to figure out the reason for Voight slipping the plane ticket into his right hand, giving him a pointed look and a muttered 'go ask her what you need to ask her' and then a 'you have three weeks off starting now, don't come back until your head's on straight' before turning back to his files sprawled out across his desk, the remnants of a kidnapper they'd caught and put away early that morning who was going to rot in statesville for the rest of his miserable days.

He was well aware he hadn't been at his best, hadn't fully been committed to locking a guy behind bars or shooting someone point blank in the head or interrogating a sick son of bitch who had intel on a missing kid but he'd been trying. He'd been trying to battle his warped reality and the real, cold hard truth that she'd left and it was hitting him harder than it should've and harder than he'd ever thought it would but maybe that's what he deserved for being the one to leave her first when in all honesty he needed her to get through this. And maybe he was just trying to protect her but he should've realized Erin Lindsay didn't need protecting from anyone, let alone himself. She had been right - _she could've handled it_. He was the one that couldn't.

But now here he was, his flight less than two hours away, swallowing some bitter punch or maybe it was supposed to be lemonade out of a pathetic solo cup and cracking a grin at a joke someone managed, lightening the mood and lifting their spirits because discussing the dark and the heavy for too long was never good for anyone. Here he was fiddling with the damn plane ticket between his fingers with a suitcase packed in the back of his truck and a scribbled out sticky note on his dashboard with the name of her apartment complex and her room number courtesy of Hank himself almost as an afterthought, though Jay had been staring at it for two weeks now and had the route to get to her from the airport memorized in his head, trying to convince himself to get on the plane in the first place because Hank had stressed he hadn't- and wouldn't - utter a word about his coming. And maybe that would be easier- dealing with her turning away from him face to face rather than over the phone, but maybe this was an entirely stupid idea in the first place and maybe he just needed a few days in that log cabin he kept for a semblance of relief when it all got to be too much because this certainly qualified as far more than he could handle. But he couldn't help but feel that pang in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought of her hazel eyes peering over at him from the comfort of their shared bed, or whenever he thought of her arms encircling his waist while he unsuccessfully attempted to keep his focus on the spaghetti sauce he was heating on the stove, her body elevating as she stood on her tiptoes to let her lips graze his neck, the feeling of her smirk against his skin as he emitted a low growl of frustration and need.

"You might not be able to see it, but you're angry at her. You're angry and it's messing with your head and you're missing her and that's messing with your head too and as your superior I'm telling you to get to the airport, already. That's a damn order, boy." Again, he snapped out of his thoughts, whirling to find the older man hobbling towards him with the help of his cane on his right side, one legging dragging slower than the other and Jay had to grin. William Quincy was able to read him like an open book, and had been since Jay had wandered into his first meeting with all of that pent up chaos rolling around in his brain. The man had conquered far worse than what he would ever lay out in the open for the group to hear- but he'd given enough here and there of his own battles for Jay to know not to ask questions. There was some darkness you never got away from no matter how hard and how fast you ran. But William had twisted his darkness, altered and adapted it to dedicate his life to helping others, to being the one to reach down and pull soldiers out of their holes and out of themselves and Jay would forever owe him far more than he could ever give or put into words. The man was sent straight from heaven above, he was certain.

"Yes, sir," Jay replied with a quick crack of a smile and then he was jogging out to his truck and speeding to the airport with his head full of nothing but the feeling of her dimples under the pads of his fingertips and how infuriated he was at her for not giving him his goodbye.


	6. Chapter 6

**\- Hello everyone! The ideas for this fic continue to flow so here's the next part- centered around our beloved Erin Lindsay. Except our favorite blue-eyed detective may make an appearance (; Let me know what you think in the reviews!**

 **X**

She paced back and forth restlessly near the vast window overlooking the city, the door to her office bolted shut because she was running on less than two hours of sleep over the past twenty-four hours and from what she'd seen in the rearview mirror of the cab on her way over here she was a sight for sore eyes and really wasn't in a cheerful enough mood to force pleasantries. But her heart was aching for home and her head was throbbing from the imminent threat of a terroristic breach in security that Agent Spencer had her assigned to a few weeks ago now, demanding around the clock updates and all hands on deck because Independance Day was rapidly approaching and their leads and intel were dwindling on the sick bastards as to who exactly they were and what exactly they were targeting.

All they had as concrete information was that the group was stationed over in Afghanistan, that their numbers were growing and that they'd found a way to slip into the states undetected and though the thought made her sick to her stomach the thought of US soldiers over there in that very part of the world sacrificing every single hour and every single minute of their lives made her even sicker and one in particular was at the forefront of her mind. _Mouse_.

A knock on the door caused a jolt in her muscles and she muttered a few curse words as her steaming cup of black coffee dribbled down the front of her stark white blouse, scorching the fingers of her left hand in the process and angry tears welled in the corners of her eyes because it may have been ten o'clock at night but she desperately needed the caffeine and no one had told her how the fear would constantly gnaw at the pit of her stomach on this job but she'd be expected to swallow it and stuff it down and instead face the terrorists head on, study the pictures of their dark, hollow expressions lacking any sort of humanity and memorize every known sick and twisted fact there was to know about them because this was the real deal and if she didn't do her job, if she didn't complete the assignment, thousands, if not millions of people were going to lose their lives.

"Lindsay. Update in the conference room. _Now_."

It was Spencer, her hair frazzled and loose around her sharp jaw line, her shirt untucked and wrinkled and her pencil skirt just a tad bit crooked and Erin steeled herself, putting her head down and following in the woman's footsteps, her expression grim and terse.

The conference room did little to alleviate her fears, a few higher ups stationed near the overhead screen with their arms crossed and brows furrowed and a few more scattered around the edges, nibbling on their fingernails or shifting their weight back and forth and Erin kept her place near the door in the back corner- perhaps to have the option to run to the bathroom and sink down on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor and lock herself in a stall and give in to her anger, to smash her fists into the walls and to scream because these bastards were winning, were keeping the upper hand and it was only a matter of time before they acted on it.

"We have confirmation this group is a branch of the Taliban from our soldiers over in Afghanistan. They've successfully locked in on a base camp and a mission is set to breach in the next few weeks. Until then, the hacker we locked up who's been doing work for them started talking. There's more of them that landed here and we need to be prepared for the worst." His voice sent shivers straight down Erin's spine because the nightmare she was living was far from over. And she must've gone pale, must've stumbled a step backwards because Jennifer caught her, mumbled something in her ear about heading home and coming back with fresh eyes in the morning and all Erin could manage in reply was a nod, waiting for the director to finish his briefing before ducking out the door, stopping in her office only to grab her bag off the back of her chair before dashing to the elevator and then to hail a cab back to the silence and the emptiness of her apartment.

 **X**

She rounded the corner of her floor before taking off her heels, letting the carpet seep between her toes and bring her a small sense of relief, taking the last few paces to get to her door and not even bothering to look up from the ground because it was nearly one in the morning and she was fairly certain everyone living near her was well over the age of sixty, but she should've been paying attention. She should've looked up from the god awful carpet because then she would've seen him. She would've noticed him slouched in front of her door, his head rolled to one side and his perfect blue eyes closed and his left leg bent at the knee, his breathing soft and quiet and even and her favorite dust of freckles across his nose or maybe she would've turned and ran and gathered her bearings on the stairwell because he was here and not where she'd left him and maybe she would've dropped her bag and her shoes and run at him, fallen to her knees right beside his strong frame and buried her nose into the crook of his neck to finally stop pretending that she didn't miss the hell out of him. But instead she just stood there, studying the shadow on his chin which meant he hadn't shaved in more than few days, studying the way his soft grey henley hugged the muscles in his arms and the way the fingers of his right hand twitched- a tick he was only able to get a handle on if her fingers were entangled in his, a remnant of years spent pulling the trigger and trying to sleep under constant gunfire.

And though she was confused and at a loss for words, though she had no idea what in the hell he was doing here or what there was even left to say, she settled down on the floor to the left of him, pulled her knees up to her chest and let her hazel hues drift closed as her head came to rest on top of her legs because she was exhausted. Because she hadn't been able to get a full nights sleep since he left her with her six pillows and a bare side of the bed. Since he left her without his forehead kisses until her eyes fluttered open and without his delicious moans if she just couldn't keep her hands or her mouth to herself in the early morning glow of the sunlight. So tonight she wouldn't ask any questions, and she wouldn't bother to unlock the door and she wouldn't wake him and it would be okay- because as much as she tried not to, she was looking backwards. Back at her blue eyed partner and his 'I love you toos' and crooked little smiles because as hard as she attempted to convince herself of otherwise, this place wasn't home without him in it.

So she let unconsciousness take her, her head falling to rest on his shoulder and the feeling of that tiny part of him against her cheek was enough to knock her out cold. Because she hadn't really slept without the heat of his body right next to hers and there was this small sense of hope rolling around in the pit of her stomach that maybe he hadn't slept very well either because he missed the sound of her hummed lullaby or the way she fluttered kisses down the bare muscles of his chest.


	7. Chapter 7

He woke a few hours later, embarrassed to have fallen asleep in the first place without even getting to see her, without even making it into the damn apartment to maybe even just the couch cushions, but if he was being completely honest he'd been running on fumes for days and the night sweats and the night terrors had never been too kind when it came to closing his eyes. And then he felt the weight of her head, the smell of her coconut shampoo hitting his nostrils the instant he shifted, letting his bent knee fall to the ground and his hands come to rest at his sides though he was itching to touch her. She hadn't been right next to him months, hadn't fallen asleep beside him for longer than that and all he wanted to do was relish in those few moments before her fiery eyes snapped opened and shattered this false serenity between the both of them. But his blue eyes flickered over her oh so familiar features, the tiny almost invisible scar above her left eyebrow from when her father had thrown a broken beer bottle at her head in one of his angry tirades she almost always refused to speak of, a childhood memory she mumbled every so often for only him to hear, in the early hours of the morning when the day was too new and too shiny to be completely ruined by her recollections of abuse at the hands of the people who should've loved her the most. Then to her right temple, another slice of a scar from banging her head on the side of the coffee table when Teddy was old enough to toddle around whatever poor excuse of a home Bunny had them holed away in, playing an innocent game of tag with his older sister who for her entire life had only tried to make things better, _safer_ for the boy, when their mother staggered home high out of her mind or forgot to put dinner on the table or tuck them in for the night, who had left them to fend for themselves even after their sick criminal of a father was hauled away to rot in a cell.

It'd taken her so long to get those pieces of her out, he knew. He'd held her hand and stroked her knuckles and kissed her forehead while she whispered the words and then her cheek to catch the few tears she hadn't been able to force back, hadn't been able to quite hold at bay because she'd always known somewhere deep inside of her that those people didn't deserve her tears but maybe she'd never been given the time to properly mourn the life she'd never had a chance at living. With a mother who baked chocolate chip cookies for the bake sale at school, for a father who stuck around to hand her off to a boy before the school dance or swore up and down she better be home by midnight or else. And Jay knew Hank and Camille had filled a large part of that void for her. Had given her warm meals on Thanksgiving and a bedroom that she got to call her own. But in those few and far between moments she wanted to talk, wanted him to get a glimpse at what her life used to be, he fell in love with the warrior of a woman that she was all over again.

So instead of thinking twice about it, he reached out his fingers to smooth a stray strand of hair off of her cheekbone, tucking it ever so gently behind her ear but her eyes flickered open to meet his and he slowly pulled his hand away from her. He opened his mouth to maybe stutter out an explanation, maybe throw Hank under the bus for the entire thing, but he'd be lying if he hadn't thought about showing up here millions of times before he was actually given the opportunity. Hadn't thought about taking her up in his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist and carrying her straight into the bedroom because it'd been far too long without the whispered moanings of his name, or hadn't thought about demanding answers, demanding his goodbye, demanding she come back with him to Chicago because it was just as much her city as it was his and it didn't quite feel the same without her in it. Or maybe even taking her to Wisconsin to that serene cabin nestled in the woods, away from final board decisions and veteran support meetings and all of the other messes in between.

"Jay, what the hell-"

He watched her brow crinkle and her body jolt, almost as if she was trying to get away from him, her hands flailing to gather what she'd obviously dropped the night before, the weight of needing to say something, to _do_ something propelling him out of his silent stupor, reaching for her heels and straightening up off of the ground to find her scrambling for the key to unlock the door. And here she was- trying to turn away from him and away from what they could be or maybe still were but he'd been wrong before. Seeing her do this in person hurt far worse than he'd anticipated. She'd already left him once and here she was trying to do it again, this time right in front of his eyes.

"Erin, I-"

"No." The key finally clicked in the lock, finally allowed the door to swing open to give her the escape route she was so desperately looking for, it seemed. He tried not to clench the fingers of his right hand, tried not to let his fingernails dig into his palm as he watched her take a hesitant step into that damn apartment that'd snatched her away from him, that kept her here in its four walls with a city view, rather than back in Chicago with his blueberry pancakes and reruns of the Cubs games on their favorite couch. Jay watched her eyes flit down her to her cell, her jaw tighten in frustration, a long sigh slipping past her lips and finally her hand rake through her disheveled waves, then holding it out to take the heels he still had clutched to his chest, almost desperately.

"Just let me explain," he murmured, and it killed him how weak his voice sounded. How scared he truly was that she'd turn away without even so much as an explanation, how she'd lock him out of her new place and her new life and send him straight back to Will's place with plenty of booze to numb him completely for at least a few days. He still had a week to kill before Hank would even dream of letting him back up in the bullpen and suddenly he was so very afraid he'd let himself get to a point where handing in the badge for good would seem like his only option.

That was when he saw the tears spring to the corner of her eyes, though she ducked her head to try to hide it from him as if he hadn't spent months memorizing the way her body reacted and worked and _was_. As if he hadn't spent days consoling her after finding Nadia dead and buried in the sand, clinging to the fabric of her sweater and letting her yank at the cloth of his jacket to give her something to hold onto that wasn't a bottle of pills. As if he hadn't spent hours rocking her back and forth in his arms when they'd found Teddy in this very same city and heard what he'd gone through, what he'd been forced to live through, when her guilt tried to swallow her whole because somehow she ended up with a cop and his family who treated her as one of their own while her baby brother sold his body to make it just another day and through her whispered 'it should've been mes' he did everything he could to assure her that none of this was her fault.

But then she nudged the door open further with her hip, keeping it there with her arm that wasn't full of what she'd brought with her from the office, finally meeting his steady gaze again. This time, neither of them looked away.

"Jay, I owe you more than two minutes. I just- I need to get back to work. I promised I'd be back there and I- I need to shower. You can come in and I need to go shower, okay?" Her lower lip quivered and Jay wondered if either of them were ready for this, ready for this confrontation and whatever else would come bubbling to the surface but he just nodded, grateful for an invitation into her shiny new world and so he took it, handing over her heels and ignoring the brush of their fingers and stepping after her into the place, his eyes scanning over every inch of it as if a single piece of it would feel like her. But it was clean and sleek and looked nearly untouched and he found it really hard to believe she was even calling this place home because Erin Lindsay didn't know the meaning of the word 'tidy'. But tidy it was, with its high end marble counter tops and dark, shiny wooden floors and leather furniture and an entire wall of windows giving her the most exquisite view he had ever seen of New York City.

"I uh- I'll be right back." He cast a glance over his shoulder to find her near the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest and a tiny, sad smile turning up a corner of her mouth and then she disappeared from view and he could finally breathe. Finally let his heart thud with a new sense of panic because he didn't know how he was going to get her back. But he needed her. _He needed her to come back._

X

He shuffled around the kitchen for a few moments before he found everything he needed, chuckling at her lack of food in the fridge or spices in the cabinets but she had enough of what he had in mind, almost as if she waiting for him to come to her so she could slip her arms around his bare chest and trail kisses down his spine as he cooked the both of them breakfast, their stomachs growling from all the energy that was exerted the night before underneath the covers.

Jay looked up from sliding her plate across the counter to the sound of footsteps and to see her wandering in his direction, her hair pulled back off of her face and her body covered by a navy pantsuit with a nude heel and if the circumstances were different he would've smirked and kissed her forehead and told her she looked beautiful in that damn pantsuit but instead he managed a hint of what might of been a grin, motioning for her to sit on a barstool.

"I know you have to go, but I made pancakes. And some scrambled eggs and a pot of nasty black coffee. Please, just- eat something?" He watched her come closer, slide onto the barstool and study him with her hazel hues and he only managed to relax when she shoveled the first forkful of food into her mouth, a smile finally forming on her lips.

"You didn't need to make me breakfast, Jay. Coffee would've been just fine." But he noticed she was already through an entire pancake and half of her eggs and he wondered if she ever even remembered to stop and to breathe and maybe eat more than Chinese takeout every so often or if she survived solely on the bursts from caffeine.

"I know, but I wanted to. You have this habit of caring for everyone else first and not yourself, Er." He settled down beside her, sipping on his own cup of coffee though he'd poured plenty of sugar in to take off the edge.

She ate quickly but quietly and he noticed how she tried not to look at him, her eyes going anywhere but his face but he still just really wanted to kiss her. He still missed her, even though she was right here, close enough that he could touch her but she still felt way too far away. Perhaps that was on him. Perhaps it was because he'd packed a duffel bag and moved out and tried to keep her safe and then tried to propose and he'd never been able to find the words to explain what he wanted to tell her. How he knew he needed her because he wanted to be proud of the man she allowed to sleep next to her at night. How he knew he needed her because the feeling of her skin against his own kept him from reliving every funeral of putting a brother in the ground, of remembering the innocent lives he'd snatched away. How he knew he needed her because she made him believe he was still good and worthy of someone's love. He knew he needed her because she made him feel a little less guilty for living when so many of his friends had not.

"Hey, I have to go, okay? You can stay here and I'll be back as soon as I can. I- _Jay, I missed you_." She was off of the stool then, stepping towards him and into his arms and he let her. He held her to him and kissed her temple and ran his fingers gently through her hair before she pulled away, some of the walls between them finally broken with her admission and he managed to give her a small smile as she backed away towards the front door.

"I'll be here, Er. Go on and change the world in that pantsuit." He watched her roll her eyes and open her mouth as if she wanted to say more but instead her hand closed around the handle and she was gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his questions and an 'I love you' he hadn't gotten the chance to tell her.


	8. Chapter 8

It killed her to walk away from him, out of that door and out into the bustle of her new city and into a cab that smelled way too much like chili cheese dogs and a hint of something else that she tried exceptionally hard not to let her brain wander to. She kept her hand over her nostrils in a feeble attempt of disguising the scent, grateful for the fact that she could still pick up on faint traces of _his_ smell, the one she'd used to wake up to, the one that intensified whenever she buried her nose in the crook of his neck as he thrusted in and out of her and his grip on her forearms tightened and soft breath whispered her name.

"Here we are, miss."

Erin managed a grin or perhaps more of a grimace in the driver's direction, digging for what she owed and handing it to him before making a mad dash towards the front door of the FBI establishment, figuring she couldn't actually explain to anyone she'd been late because she'd been fantasizing about her ex-boyfriend just right outside, and then she was furious with herself for letting her head wander that far in the first place. She'd left and he'd moved out and yes he was here and had her stomach twisted into knots with simply the way his blue eyes trailed over her body but she still owed him an explanation and an apology and she still wasn't quite sure if she would ever find the right words to make him understand. And the thought of hurting him any worse than she already had caused the fingers of her left hand to shake in a nervous tick because Jay Halstead was and always would be one of the best things that had ever happened to her.

"Rough night?" Agent Spencer met her at the elevator, looking at least a tad bit more rested and put together, a sleek maroon dress adorning her body with a pair of reasonable black heels on her feet. Erin only nodded, desperate for a cup of searing black coffee and maybe a few minutes alone in her office looking down at the cars speeding and weaving along the streets to try and get her thoughts in order and her heartbeat in check because ever since she'd woken up with her head resting on his shoulder she was having a really hard time keeping her breath steady. But by the incessant tapping of her superior's foot and the squeezing of one of her hands into a hard fist she had a feeling today would be anything but a walk in the park or easy on her throbbing headache.

"Two soldiers turned up dead overseas. One that was discharged earlier this year living here in New York. Lockdown has been ordered for the state capitol here and the White House in D.C just as a precaution. They're acting and we're playing catch up," Agent Jennifer Spencer explained, her teeth clenched together and her jaw right. "We're afraid they're targeting soldiers specifically along with government buildings."

The two of them reached the twenty-third floor in silence, Erin trying to process the new information but not faring particularly well. She laid a hand out on the wall for support as she stepped off the elevator, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath in hopes it'd slow her erratic heartbeat but of course she'd have no such luck.

But then she steeled herself, straightened up and arched her shoulders back and narrowed her hazel hues in determination because there was no way in hell these sick bastards were harming anyone else in or working to protect her country. _Not if she had anything to do with it._ "We need their game plan. We need names. We need faces and we need people locked up, Spencer. Let me in with the hacker. I'll get him to talk."

Jennifer gave a single nod, motioning for her to follow to the other end of the hallway to an even more elaborate and spacious office to pick up a set of keys and then they were off.

X

They'd gotten what they needed out of him thanks to Erin, though throughout the interrogation she had been battling flashbacks of shoving the gun down the guy's throat back in Chicago, battling the fact that even her drastic course of actions hadn't saved that little boy's life and had sent the rest of her life spiraling out of control because she was here instead of there in a fancy pantsuit she wanted to tear off of her body because none of this felt like her. None of this felt like heading back to her place to crack a cold one after slipping into one of his old shirts or giving Burgess a hell of a time for making googly eyes at Ruzek at Molly's because they all knew it'd happen again sooner or later. None of this felt like heading over to Hank's to watch old videos he'd filmed over the years, on the anniversary of Camille's death and now Justin's- when they both needed a reminder of the family they'd loved and they'd lost.

She clutched her dog tags between her fingers as the black sedan jostled her over the potholes, a habit she'd picked up over the past few days when the homesickness got to be too much. When she couldn't quite handle digging through the files of suicide bombers or terroristic threats or WMD's the government was getting nervous about and when she couldn't quite handle the silence of her cellphone and the lack of his face or his name flashing on her screen.

"Go home, Lindsay. The team is breaching the safe house as we speak. You did good work today." Erin managed a smile in Jennifer's direction but it didn't reach her eyes. They'd found exactly what they needed to feel a tad bit safer here in the states but the threat for their soldiers across the ocean was still very real and frightening and as hard as she tried she couldn't get away from the sick feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach.

X

She was back at the apartment only a few minutes later, her jaw tight with nerves because he was only on the other side of the door now instead of a few states over and all she really wanted to do was crash her lips onto his and forget the weight of all that laid on her shoulders when it came to this job and this new life but she owed him more that. And so hesitantly she clicked the key into the lock and then turned the handle of the door and frantically searched the space for him, suddenly afraid he had boarded another damn plane away from her and back to home and the life she'd left behind and her brow crinkled and she licked her bottom lip because the thought stung but she wouldn't have blamed him. _She wouldn't have blamed him at all_.

"You know, you should hire a maid or something, Er. Your shower is disgusting." She found him, coming around the corner from down the hall and what she assumed must've been the bathroom, catching the tail end of him slipping a t-shirt over the delicious muscles of his abdomen and she fidgeted because it was one she kept in the third drawer of her dresser, one she had never given back that probably still smelled like her skin because when the nights got really hard and really long she found a small sense of comfort from the fabric of his clothes against her bare body.

"If you can believe it, that wasn't my fault. Apparently it's just bad plumbing. It's not ideal, I know." And she winced because she flashed back to breakfast, back to his story of the couple that lived across the street from each other but still made it work, back when all she'd wanted was him back in bed with her and back in her arms and now it was all so much more complicated than that. _No, this wasn't ideal at all_.

She watched him give a tight grin, settling onto the edge of the couch and reaching for his bottle of beer as if the booze would ease some of what she was about to tell him, as if this was an easy, carefree 'honey I'm home from work' conversation. But then he fell silent, his blue eyes locking onto hers from all the way across the room and she still had to take a breath to collect herself because those damn eyes sent her body into overdrive every single time they met her own.

"Jay, I did it to protect Bunny. I'm here because they promised to drop the charges. I- _I had to_."

She watched him jolt up from the couch, his fingers digging into the palms of his hands in a sudden burst of frustration, knowing he needed to get the anger out but was trying to hold back because raising his voice had never been something he enjoyed, especially when it came to her. Knowing he had never done well with feeling what he was supposed to feel or expressing it in a way that made sense and she took a hesitant step towards him, as if touching him would make any piece of this situation better but she stopped at the back of the couch because he whipped away from her, faced the wall and refused to meet her gaze.

"Jay, I wasn't going to get my job back. I- I had to do this. They were going to take my badge. I- _I'm sorry_." Her voice fell to a shaky whisper, her gaze shifting to the ground because the muscles in his shoulders had started to tense and she didn't know how to fix this. How to reach him and pull him back and sob that she loved him with absolutely everything that she was but her place wasn't in Chicago anymore. That she was here because she needed to protect the woman that handed her a shitty life and an abusive father and an addiction she'd always be terrified she'd fall back into.

"You couldn't just- you couldn't at least tell me that?!" He whirled back around, his blue eyes blazing and his brow crinkled into a frown and it killed her, putting him through this. Killed her because she deserved every single ounce of his anger. "I waited like an idiot for you at Molly's. A fucking idiot with a ring in my pocket that I thought would fix everything."

Her eyes widened and she breathed in sharply, her eyes welling with a new round of tears because that was the last thing she'd ever expected. She'd never felt good enough for this man, this man that had laid down his life for this country and his fellow soldiers, who was selfless and brave and who loved so fiercely it took her breath away, who deserved more than her fiery defenses and fucked up family and her walls and the fact she couldn't keep anything clean or put together no matter how hard she tried. This man who kept an old photo of his mom in his wallet, back when she was radiant and cancer free with those same shocking blue eyes and dash of freckles, who sat through meals with her own mess of a mother who had put them in this very position and who reached out to Teddy still to this day making sure he was adjusting to his new job at a restaurant because Jay had seen the haunted look in his eyes and vowed to keep him safe just as she had all those months ago.

Then her jaw clenched and she took a few more steps closer to him, determined to make him look at her. And when he finally did, when he finally let her see those crystal blue orbs, she fired.

"Jay, I couldn't! You know I couldn't!" Erin screamed, her hands flailing and tears falling because her body was aching to touch him and aching to feel him but she needed to get this out. "Hearing your voice, hearing you tell me not to…. I would've stayed. I needed- I couldn't go back to you. You would've changed my mind!"

His gaze softened for only an instant and she watched him fight to get the words out, watched him try to comprehend what she'd just admitted but his jaw tightened again and her heart dropped. It hadn't worked.

"Er, I wouldn't have told you to stay. Hell, I would've told you that you deserved this. I would've told you to take the job. I just- I wasn't even worth a goodbye? Or an explanation?" She winced, seeing his own frustrated tears welling in the corner of his orbs and then she couldn't take it anymore. She closed the last few paces of distance between them, brought her hand to his cheek and the other to his chest, unable to stop herself from crying. Not anymore. Not with him this close and still too far away from her.

"I worked so hard to be worthy of you again, to earn that spot right next to you in bed. I worked so hard to be proud of who I saw looking back at me in the mirror, Er. And now there's.. _there's no point_. It's Bunny, every damn time. You'll always choose her. You'll always choose her when she needs you when she's nothing but bad for you." His eyes blazed and he stepped away, away from her touch and her trembling frame and she nibbled on her bottom lip because he was right. But that didn't mean it stung any less.

"You don't need me, Jay. She does and she's- she's _family_." She grimaced because even as the words fell past her lips they were a hell of a shitty excuse.

"Of course I need you!" Jay erupted, the tears finally falling down his cheeks and she took a step away from him, his voice raised and his eyes full of so much turmoil it sent her reeling. She was at a loss. " _I need you_. I need you because I can't sleep at night without hearing guns and screams and everyone dying. I need you because I'm so fucking afraid no matter how hard I try I'm never going to get better. I'm not- I'm not strong enough, Er. _Not without you_."

And then she was in his arms and his lips were on hers because she couldn't take it anymore. Because her heart was in pieces hearing him admit to all the pain he was trying to bear all on his own and because she loved every last part of this man standing before her. Because the rest of what needed to be said could wait until morning in the early soft light when he was finished whispering her name and sending her straight over the edge into pure bliss.


	9. Chapter 9

He awoke to the sudden inklings of instant panic rolling around in the pit of his stomach, his arms flailing and his fingers desperately reaching for the space of bed beside him but to his complete and utter horror all he felt was **cold**. Not the warmth of her skin or the soft of her dark locks or even the coolness of her toes brushing up against his legs; just the cold. And then he was up from underneath the covers, the last of the sleep shooting out and away from his system, his blue eyes alert and darting, searching for the clothes that'd been strewn somewhere into the darkness of her bedroom the night before, far too lost in the lust of her steady gaze to care of anything other than the woman underneath the pads of his fingertips. But then he was at least partially covered, the muscles of his chest still bare and flexing in frustration because he'd been so wrapped up in the way her lips felt against his neck, so wrapped up in the way she screamed out his name and dug her fingernails into sporadic patterns across his back that he hadn't anticipated what her absence would feel like again, what it would feel like when he'd been inside of her only a few hours earlier and had felt as close as you could possibly get to another human being and then have her ripped so cruelly away. _I'm not ready._

And then came the blaring of the fire alarm, his instincts kicking in before the rest of his brain, having dashed into the kitchen to find her deliciously covered in only _his_ damn t-shirt, her arms waving wildly above her head somewhere over near the stove and her hair tied up off of her neck and he couldn't help the grin that turned up the right side of his mouth because she was still very much here. She was still very much here, in her shiny apartment in New York City, wearing only one article of his clothing and cooking what appeared to be her poor attempt at a breakfast in bed. And then she must have sensed him or heard his lingering footsteps because her hazel hues met his blue ones from across the room, a sheepish smile ghosting across her lips as she made a mad dash across the kitchen for a dish towel, stretching up on her tiptoes to display her prominent calf muscles and even more of her leg and then he just couldn't help himself. Jay closed the last bit of space between them, clearing his throat as he finally entered the worst of the smoke smelling a bit too much like burnt scrambled eggs and then pulling her to him, her body arching to meet his own and then finally her lips crashing down across his mouth.

"I uh- I was trying to make breakfast," she murmured against his lips as the alarm finally fell silent, his favorite dimples appearing on her cheeks and then he felt her arms drape around his neck and her fingers beginning to slide through his hair and he tried to come up with a more perfect memory of a morning but he failed miserably.

"Er, I would've made you breakfast," he whispered back, their noses touching and then their lips as if they couldn't get enough of each other and maybe they couldn't because now they both knew what it was like to lay awake at night without the comfort of the other, or what it felt like when the person you'd once confided absolutely everything to just wasn't that person any longer. And he now knew what it felt like to fight a losing battle against his demons, when the promise of her and her love and her grins and her assuring intertwining of their fingers from across the center console were no longer there, knew that he needed her to get past this and to finally face what had been haunting him for years.

"You made me breakfast yesterday," she shot back, her nose crinkling adorably in retort and he relented because she may have been right but he also knew he'd do anything for her and that hadn't changed since the moment he'd first met her and given her the proper label of 'his partner'. _Not just on the job anymore. In life. Forever_. _One day._ _Hopefully_.

He'd begun to have this sinking feeling somewhere that they were still walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around his return ticket back to Chicago and her permanent residence here. Tiptoeing around the fact that he'd lost track of how many times he'd been inside of her the night before, never quite able to stop the need to be that close to her, that intimate… and he was certain she felt the same, or that somewhere in her dresser drawers laid her stark white blouses and pinstriped pants and none of those form fitting v-neck t-shirts he'd love to stare at from across the bullpen, knowing if his blue orbs wandered for long enough she'd notice and smirk and learn over her keyboard to snatch a pen for a beat longer than necessary and it was then he realized he'd been made.

But then he came back to the here and the now, the fact she was up before him for the only time that he could ever remember over the course of being with her and now nearly twirling around the kitchen, her eyes alight with not nearly a hint of her usual grogginess or crankiness and the sun was barely even up over the horizon and he felt his brow furrow in confusion. He felt his hands grasp the countertop and tighten, grasping for something, _anything_ to make sure this was **reality** and not some terrible figment of his imagination, wondering if he was actually back in Will's cold and empty apartment and pretending not to mind that his brother was out for dinner with Nat for at least the fifth time that week or that his stomach was craving more than leftover wings and a beer which was all that ever seemed to be in the refrigerator.

"Jay?"

She was studying him now, the water running in the sink as she washed off the burnt eggs from the pan with her fingers and maybe a sponge, her arm moving up and down with the steady motion but her gaze still resting firmly on him and not on her actions, always attentive to his every damn move and his every damn feeling, even after he'd built up the walls and refused to let her tear them down. _And yet, she had_. Wiggled her way past every barrier he'd ever built around his heart, the ones he'd started to construct when he realized he was a constant disappointment to his alcoholic of a father, when he was witness to his mother and her final breath and that single tear dripping down her cheek, that final release of all the pain she'd bottled up for the past few years while she tried with absolutely everything inside of her to be strong for her two boys. And then his walls had solidified after witnessing the war, the death of so many of his comrades and villagers and innocent people, hardened even after he'd allowed the little brother of his high school girlfriend to die, the walls then strengthened because he hadn't been able to stop it, hadn't been smart enough or skilled enough to figure out what had happened to the poor little boy until years later. Hardened yet again by the self-hatred he built up as time went on, the Vegas marriage and the pointless woman he'd roped along into his antics, the way he kept falling further away from whom he'd promised his mother he'd become and compartmentalizing instead of dealing and processing it all, instead of facing the disgrace of a veteran he had turned into and the man he couldn't stand to look at in the mirror.

She must have finished then because she was in his arms, pressed back up against him with her palms planted firmly on either side of his face, forcing him to open his eyes and look at her, with her warm gaze and firm set of her mouth, and forcing him out of the pieces that he hated of himself. The pieces he hated laying bare for her to see, the pieces he still tried so desperately to run away from and he was trying to learn to let her love.

"Hey. Come back to me. _I can handle it_." He had to smile then, her words relaxing his shoulders and his fingers which had curled into fists because somehow she had known exactly where he was and then his hands were in her hair and his lips were all over her neck and then trailing to her collarbone and her moan and the tossing back of her head went straight to his groin and he almost scooped her right back up into his arms and then into the bedroom to have his way with her but he remembered she always had somewhere she needed to be- _somewhere that wasn't right here with him._

"Don't... you… have... work?" Jay mumbled between scattered kisses on her cheek and then her temple, chuckling as she whimpered and finally pulled his lips back down to meet her own.

"I called in and asked to come late. And actually… you're coming with. I could use your help with something." He waited for her to break into a grin as if this was a good thing, or that maybe this was just her inviting him into her new slice of life and new cushy job and maybe all it would entail would be a quick tour and then a blessing on the top of her new desk but he noticed her nibbling nervously on her bottom lip and then the shaking of her fingers and all he manage was a nod.

And then without a word she grabbed for his hand and led him down the hall and then to the shower, his shirt falling away from her frame and then the sweatpants away from his and he wondered if something was wrong, if she needed to do this to keep herself distracted, but then the steam began fogging up the mirrors and then his heartbeat was speeding up at the mere sight of her, the heat of the water and the heat of her naked body all mixing into one as he closed the last bit of space between the both of them, her back hitting the shower wall and her kisses trailing down his stomach and all of his worries and second guessing was lost in his gentle moans.


	10. Chapter 10

She dressed herself slowly; first the lacy black bra and a matching pair of underwear from her top dresser drawer, chuckling to herself as she felt his eyes roaming up and down her body from somewhere amongst the pillows and the covers of the bed he hadn't bothered to crawl out of. Then the navy pair of trousers and a pale grey blouse, Hank's dog tags sliding underneath the fabric as she buttoned and the collar folding over near the crook of her neck, a professional persona she was now expected to carry at the office that hadn't laid quite so heavily on her shoulders when patrolling the streets of Chicago, a sudden longing for her signature beanies and dark faded jeans.

"You're beautiful, you know." His sleepy voice had always gotten to her, always sent a shiver up and down her spine, caused her fingers to twitch with the longing of trailing them ever so softly across his jawline from the first time that pleasurable sound had danced across her eardrums, from that very first night that lasted a bit longer than she'd meant for, that very first night when they realized they didn't work together any longer and that maybe, _just maybe_ it was time to stop the tiptoeing.

Her hazel orbs wandered over to the bed, his strong frame propped up and hidden only slightly under the comforter, his chest bare and his hair disheveled and a shadow of unshaven facial hair across his cheeks and she almost voiced her displeasure, voiced that she hated the way it tickled her own skin and scratched across her own lips but somewhere she realized it probably wasn't her place anymore and somewhere she realized she wasn't even quite sure of the entirety of what had happened between the both of them even meant because at the end of the day her home was this prim and proper apartment and his home was her old city of Chicago.

But today was not a day to bring up their **reality** \- no, today was going to be a day of pretending and imagining and wondering what would happen if she left New York behind and sat beside him on that return flight she knew he would be expected to get on with his hand in her lap and his head on her shoulder and absolutely no plan in her head as to what her future would entail. Today would be imagining what it would be like to keep him here, in this new world with his impeccable cleaning habits and extraordinary cooking talents, with his ridiculous snorts of laughter whenever she tickled the bottoms of his feet or the horrendous screeching that he called _singing_ whenever 'she will be loved' played on the radio.

"Are you sure it's not too… I don't know, _stuffy_? I feel like I'm fifty. I might as well have three cats and a couple grandkids by now," she huffed into the mirror, raking her fingers through her hair which probably should've been clean and smelling something like coconuts, but she'd been a tad bit distracted in the shower earlier that same morning and then again just a half hour ago rolling around in the sheets so to be completely honest she was fairly sure she'd forgotten to actually accomplish anything in the damn thing except getting him off with her hands and her tongue and her mouth. underneath the steady stream of warm water. She crinkled her nose and caught his gaze in the mirror, whirling to find him stifling a laugh and all she could manage was a roll of her eyes because he still looked absolutely delectable in the early morning streams of sunlight and if she went anywhere near that damn bed again they'd never make it out of the apartment.

"Jay, you have two minutes to _get your ass up_ and looking presentable. There's stuff in the closet of yours I-" And then her hazel eyes widened, realizing what she'd just admitted to. Realizing he now knew she had kept a part of his wardrobe that he'd neglected to come back for all those months ago from their shared apartment in Chicago- had boxed it up and taken it with her, almost as if she had known he'd come back. Almost as if she'd known all along he'd end up right here with her, that she'd let him right back in with his adorable smirks and that dash of freckles across his nose.

He stood then, up out of the bed, her back now to him and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she tucked in the bottom of her blouse, turning then to find him fully clothed in a casual pair of jeans and her favorite maroon colored henley. _Damn it_.

"I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have- I didn't want you to see me like…" He trailed off, his blue eyes suddenly distant, lost in a world she hadn't yet become a part of, the world full of guns and his regret and his hatred of everything that he was. Slowly but surely, he was letting her in.

"Like what, Jay? A human being?" Her gaze softened, taking the few steps to get to him, her arms slipping around his waist as his fingers brushed up against her skin as he smoothed a piece of hair off her cheek.

"I uh- it's getting easier to talk about. I'm getting there, Er. _I promise_." She rested her chin on his chest as he looked down at her, her lips turning up in the hint of a sad grin because this was progress but she was well aware of the fact that it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy admitting to your faults and admitting to your mistakes and coming to terms with the fact that you were an absolute broken mess of a person and now had to live with the side effects. With the consequences. With the memories of your worst fears coming to life right before your very eyes, the people you had hurt and the people you had lost and the pure pieces of you that you'd had to give up in order to **survive**. _She knew. Of course she knew._

"I love you," Erin whispered, and he kissed her lips again without the urgency but with just as much need, just as much emotion and just as much desire.

"I love you too," he breathed. And she hoped those words were enough to pull him out, to bring him back to her with his crooked grins and mumbled retorts as she slid behind the driver's wheel, knowing those words weren't enough to heal but that they were enough to let him know that she would never ever leave his side.

X

She'd gotten permission over the phone to bring Jay into the building, though she was certain her vouching for him would've gotten him any sort of clearance he wanted because so far she'd given them their only solid break in the case over the past few weeks. She watched his blue eyes wander to take it all in; the floor to ceiling glass windows, the hustling lethal agents dressed head to toe in business attire, the badges and IDs glinting off of their belt loops, the same one adorning her own hip, the same one that made her different from him, no longer just a member of Intelligence but a member of the FBI.

"This way," she murmured, tugging on the bottom of his t-shirt and allowing some sort of bodily contact, just enough to get his attention and to let her know she wasn't going anywhere, that she wouldn't leave him floundering.

Erin listened to the sound of his footsteps as she led him to the elevator, pressing her finger on the twenty-third button, her hand finding his and squeezing tightly. This was easier. This city, this job was easier to handle with him.

"This is intense," he whispered. And though they were alone she had to grin because he was right. He could pick up on it, his instincts kicking up into overdrive.

"Yeah. Hey…" She tugged on his fingers to get him to look at her, to let her see the anticipation and the concern flashing in his blue orbs. "Thank you for coming." He nodded, a hint of a smile turning up his lips but it didn't meet his eyes. This was her world now. And of course that wouldn't sit well in the pit of his stomach.

Then the elevator dinged and the door opened and their fingers came apart, Agent Spencer meeting them right at the door, Erin's head reeling to try to catch up as she launched into new developments, handing them each a cup of coffee as she led them down the long hallway to the conference room.

"More soldiers are dead. This time a whole camp." Erin stiffened and this time she didn't hesitate, didn't care in the slightest about what it would imply as she rested her hand on the small of Jay's back, watching his eyes travel back and forth between the monitors and his jaw tighten at the faces of the terrorists they'd been battling for months now.

"Do we have names? Names of the men we lost?" Erin growled, her fury growing, needing to lash out at someone because they were still playing catch up.

Spencer nodded, fidgeting with a pen and doing everything except meeting their eyes. "But they all got away. We just have intel on who's the head of it. A soldier radioed before they were completely ambushed."

She watched as her superior clicked a few buttons and entered a few passwords and then the faces changed, the faces of the dead appearing in front of them all along with the man supposedly responsible for it all.

She felt Jay fidget beside her, taking a step away from her as he ran the palm of his free hand up and down his face, as if he was dreaming, as if none of this was really real and he wasn't staring at twelve soldiers who'd been taken far too soon, a piece of his nightmares coming to life right before his very eyes.

"Er, we killed him. He's supposed to be dead," Jay croaked, his eyes now trained on the photo of the terrorist, the man with black pits for eyes and a sickening smirk for an expression.

And then he was gone, sprinting out the room and out of her line of sight with his cup of coffee somewhere long forgotten and she tried to take a step after him but Jennifer snatched her arm, kept her firmly planted in place and Erin tugged it away, her hazel hues fiery because she'd just made a horrible mistake stepping between her and the man she loved.

"I need you to give me his information. His name and his old unit and then you can have the rest of the day. I promise. We need this before more end up like them."

Erin clenched her jaw but she nodded, rattling off what they needed to know to look up previous missions that were more than likely highly classified, taking all but a few seconds to stop the shaking that had traveled all the way to her fingers before ducking out of the room to find him.


	11. Chapter 11

Without much knowledge of the layout of the place, of the sleek office spaces and the high tech computer screens and the narrow identical hallways, he somehow found his way to a bathroom stall, his breaths coming and going in short bursts, his heartbeat way too quick to be considered normal. He managed the lock on the door, the click of the latch and the promise of solidarity before sliding down to the cool tile of the floor, his body collapsing in on itself as he ducked his

head between his legs and let out a wretched sob. But then he remembered that damn technique, the breathing and the clenching of his hands that he had learned from William screaming it in his ear, what would bring him back down and away from the panic, away from the horrors of what he had witnessed and what he had done and what had been conditioned into him.

But then he heard footsteps, the click of her heels against the hardness of the floor, his heart speeding right back up as the tears slid down his cheeks, the shame building in the pit of his stomach because he was still going backwards and he was still falling flat of who he hoped to be, of who he hoped would be worthy of the love she was pouring out of her heart.

"Jay?" The crack of her voice hit him, the sound of her own tears evident in the tone and the sounds and the way of her shallow breathing. He stretched to reach the lock, inviting her inside, inviting her into his self-hatred and his pain and his guilt and the jittering of his fingers because in this state they went right back to being lethal weapons- t _he pull of a trigger, the slice of a knife, the final blow to the head._

He felt her presence before he actually felt her touch, having squeezed his eyes closed underneath the palms of his hands, trying to stop the flow of the tears and trying to stop the panic rolling in waves through his entire body because he was supposed to be getting better and he was supposed to have learned how to control this and catching a glimpse of some good for nothing scum of the earth on a screen shouldn't have fucked him up this badly.

" _Babe_ …" Erin murmured, her voice soft and comforting and close, her fingers wrapping around his wrists and softly tugging, trying to get him to look at her and he relented, remembering that he'd made her a promise that he was trying. That he was working to let her in one piece at a time, to let her know that he believed that she could handle it. _That he was done believing that he could do this without her._

"I should've told you what we were dealing with. I didn't even think.. I-" Her voice cracked again, that sharp shooting pain of guilt flashing in the pit of his stomach and he winced, his fingers curling into fists now at his sides as he forced himself to look at her. To take her in with all of her beauty- her creased brow in concern, the droplet she hadn't yet brushed off her cheek, the way she nibbled on her bottom lip and her hazel hues glistened with unshed tears. And then he reached for her, her cheek resting right where the beats of his heart should be, one arm drooped over her shoulder and the other tracing useless patterns up and down her arm causing goosebumps and shivers and her lips to lazily reach up to kiss his neck. Her fingers finding the back of his henley and gripping tightly, anchoring herself right there with him curled up on that bathroom floor. But she was waiting, he could feel it. Waiting for him to give her something that he hadn't yet, a glimpse into what had been his darkest years, his worst regrets and his most shameful memories.

"Haseeb Akbar is the man you're looking for. We- uh.. I…" He trailed off, trying to find the words. Trying to find the right way to explain this to her, the woman he loved with absolutely all of his heart, the woman he didn't want to show the fucked up parts of himself. He wanted to be _better_ than that. _She deserved better than that_.

Her grip on the back of his shirt tightened, a silent reminder that she was here and that she wasn't going anywhere, urging him to continue, urging him to get it out, to put it out into the open.

"Mouse was with me. Us, two superior officers and eight other men. We'd been after the son of a bitch for nearly six months. Got wind of his guys trying to breach the borders, trying to get into the states and they were getting ballsy. More suicide bombers, more unmarked planes, more important people going missing that no one got to know about. _Except for us_." Again he paused, swallowed his anger and his hatred for the evil that he'd witnessed and his actions overseas, the pain he'd had to inflict to get the answers and the intel they'd needed to save countless lives and their very own country.

She was silent, taking it all in and for that he was grateful. He was grateful for her warmth and the trailing of of her fingers up and down the fabric of his clothing and he was grateful for the way he was fairly certain she'd bolted the door closed, leaving the two of them and only the two of them in that damn bathroom, wrapped up in each other's limbs. He was grateful for the way she'd steadied his heartbeat and brought him back from the pit of his head that hadn't fully healed, accepting that he might not ever get past it but with her he was certain that he could get _through_ it.

"We walked into a hell of a lot more firepower than we thought. We… made it to Akbar, but barely. I put a bullet through his head I guess I- _it was supposed to be him_ , Er. We had orders, we finished the mission, we lost three of our own," he whispered, crumbling. He knew he was **crumbling**.

And then could feel the panic coming right back, closing up his throat and quickening the rate of his breathing but she sat up from his arms, placing each palm ever so gently on the side of his face and resting her forehead against his own, waiting until his blue orbs opened to meet her hazel ones before she spoke. Waiting until she was sure she was reaching him, yanking him out and not allowing him to fall because he was fairly certain she knew exactly what that hole looked like. _What the hole of your own self-hatred could do to you_.

"Jay. There's no way you couldn't known. It was probably a ploy, a distraction. Some way for them to get you all at once. They lured you in with a man that looked a hell of a lot like that bastard and a name they knew you'd react to and you got the shot. You did what you were trained to do. _This is not your fault_." She grabbed his shoulders at the last bit, gave him a little shake, brushing her lips across his temple and she was right in assuming the feeling of her could get through to him. Could stop the bile rising from his insides, could stop the crushing guilt making his vision blur at the edges.

Again he felt his hands grasping for her, pulling her tiny frame back against his stronger one, kissing her hair, finding the stretch of bare stomach just above her belt loops and that shiny badge, the heat of her skin real in a way those men from overseas were not. Real because he'd left them there, away and gone and behind him and he'd keep **her** here with him no matter what it would take. He would keep her here with her crinkled up nose and signature dimples and hummed lullabies that reminded him of his mother, the only woman he had ever given his heart too, except for this one right here, wrapped up in his embrace.

"When I was thirteen and still out on the streets, I'd promised Teddy I'd bring home something for his birthday dinner. Some spaghetti or something, a real nice meal from a local joint because we both sure as hell knew Bunny wouldn't remember," she began to whisper, and he froze, the weight of what she was divulging hitting his eardrums, a glimpse into her childhood and her own dark, black pit of a hole that she'd spent her whole life trying to climb up out of. "Some asshole promised me enough for a couple of meals for the rest of the week if I kept him company at a pool hall up the street. Needed a nice girl to impress his buddies or something." She chuckled bitterly, and he felt the drip of a few new tears on his arms, the release of her guilt. But he let her keep going.

"I forgot to go back. He promised me more if I gave him the dope I had on me and if I….it doesn't matter now. What does matter is I left my brother starving on his birthday because I was too fucked up to remember what the hell I was doing. I was too focused on helping myself escape," she whispered, and he squeezed her tighter, let her bury her face in the crook of his neck and trailed kisses everywhere that he could reach, letting her know that he was here for her just as she was him.

"Er.. thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for-" He broke the silence.

"Jay, you let me in. And I'm going to do the same. I'm here. _I'm always here_."

He put the palm of his hand on the back of her neck and the other on her chin, bringing her closer to crash his lips down onto hers, breathing in that faint smell of coconuts and vanilla and the girl he'd call his saving grace.


	12. Chapter 12

_Thirteen hours and eighteen minutes_. Thirteen hours and eighteen minutes until he'd be gone again. Gone and boarded a plane and back in Chicago and back in the bullpen and not right here pressed against her bare skin, the heat of his flesh and the brush of his breath against her ear, coming down from a high and a peak from only moments ago, a morning roll in the sheets after wandering hands and scorching kisses and the inability to get enough of each other.

" **Baby** , you leave tonight," she mumbled into his shoulder, her words shattering the silence and the serenity and she could feel him wince, could feel him cave in on himself, that tiny release of a sigh and defeat and heartache.

It'd been three days instead of one away from her office and the weight of the case, Spencer pulling some strings and giving her the space she needed and the time she demanded away with Jay, holed away in the apartment with a few packs of cold ones and far too many empty boxes of pizza and cartons of ice cream. She'd found the time to check in with Olivia Benson, to catch up on things, dragging her blue-eyed companion along for the taxi ride with the promise of a little black dress and a string of pearls and a special surprise she'd picked up earlier in the week, a lunch break that had turned into a purchase of a scandalous lingerie set strictly for his viewing pleasure.

"I know," he whispered, his lips finding that soft spot under her earlobe, the one that sent delicious shivers throughout her entire body and made her toes curl in anticipation. Her fingers trailed useless patterns over his abdominal muscles, chuckling as she felt them clench, showing off as always with the Jay Halstead signature smirk and adoring kisses scattered across her dimples. And maybe once upon a time she would've loathed waking up in a man's arms, feeling the warmth of his breath and then the laziness of his limbs as he finally gained consciousness, a rushed apology and an even quicker shower, a mumbled 'see you later' then the slamming of the apartment door and then the silence of her mistakes and second thoughts, the desperate need to wash his hands off of her body, his tongue off of her skin.

But as her hazel orbs took him in, the entirety of this man lying beside her, his groggy blue hues taking in every single feature of her face, committing it to memory just as she was doing the same, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose, the scar above his left eyebrow, the stubble on his chin and the delicate eyelashes trailing across his cheeks, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could wake up to **him** every morning for the rest of their lives. That she would give up everything she had to protect him, that the next few days or the next few weeks or even the next few months would be almost unbearable without him right here within reach. That she wanted that damn wedding ring, the ring his mother had left for a girl the brothers would one day give their hearts to. That she was selfish and disgusting and how could she even believe that she was worthy of it in the first place- she'd up and left and shattered the both of them to pieces and _who the hell was she to think that they would ever even get back to that point?_

She tugged the sheet a bit tighter around her torso and further away from him, frustrated for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand; at the fact he had that plane ticket waiting on her bedside table, at the looming emptiness of this apartment and her shower and her bed, of the limbo their relationship would be in when they both settled back into their normal and were way too far apart.

"Jay, you were going to propose," she whispered, her brow crinkling, her bottom lip quivering for only an instant but it was enough for him to catch it, enough for him to shift out from underneath the covers and closer to her, bringing her back against his warm flesh and to his hurried kisses, his 'shhs' and rockings back and forth while she tried to catch her breath and make sense of the turmoil her heart had launched her into.

"Hey…. of course I was, _I love you_. I want to spend the rest of my life with you I just- where did that come from?" She managed a glimpse up and out of where she'd buried her face into his chest to find his own hint of a frown bending his features, shifting to wipe the tears off of her cheeks because even she wasn't quite sure where this crushing sense of guilt was coming from. Why she couldn't even catch an entire breath and why she suddenly felt as if this man would always be far more than she would ever deserve.

"I left, Jay. You had a ring and I just… I _**left**_." And he tried to get her to look at him, his palms on either side of her face and then his fingers tilting up her chin and his blue eyes searching but she wouldn't let him see her. The broken addict of a little girl who'd grown up far too fast, the terrified woman she was now, running from a bottle of pills and the belief she'd never truly escape from her shitty past and the people that had hurt her more times than she could count. Running from the fear that all she knew how to do was let people down, how to smash the people that loved her into tiny miniscule pieces because sometimes that was easier than letting them get too close. How she felt that her good luck was running out because once upon a time a cop and his wife took pity on a dirty criminal of a girl he found on the streets, how if anyone was up there watching over her she had a feeling there wouldn't be much more of anything good headed in her direction. How her blue-eyed detective may have been a blessing sent straight from heaven above but she wouldn't dare drag him through her hell any longer. He'd fought so hard through his demons to be with her and to be better and here she was, making a home with hers- with an ungrateful bitch of a mother who should've been locked up and contained and sent away but of course Erin had protected her, shielded her from the punishments she so rightfully deserved. _Every single goddamn time_. How in the world was that fair to _him_?

And he didn't have anything to say to that, to the heart-wrenching truth of her absence, the separation that was coming and that they couldn't halt, the ring back in Chicago with him and not here with her on the fourth finger of her left hand with the blessing from his mother.

"How does french toast sound?" His voice was almost cheerful, the smile almost reached his eyes as he scrambled for his boxers from somewhere on the floor, his hair adorably disheveled and all over the place and if the last few moments hadn't been aired out into the open she would've called him on it, tugged him back down for another round because he was just that irresistible.

But instead she nodded, her smile more of a grimace, the last of her tears falling down onto the bedsheets as he ducked out of the room and disappeared from view.

X

The rest of their time together was spent in an uncomfortable almost silence, their fingers constantly interlaced as the weight of the ticking clock began to sink in, the **reality** of what they were going to face and the tension she still felt rolling around in the pit of her stomach from that morning. And yet Jay had insisted on a trip to the grocery store, a cart full of fruits and vegetables and everything that wasn't microwavable except he'd relented on their favorite cardboard pizzas and miniature corn dogs. A fridge now full of milk and yogurt and even coffee creamer, though he knew she took it black. A trip to the gym next, maybe to run and lift off their pent up frustrations or maybe just for the shirtless snapshots he insisted on taking from his phone, poses in the mirror and snorts of laughter from the both of them and then the disappearance of their smiles because none of this was going to last much longer.

And finally an elaborate dinner, a steakhouse downtown he'd listened to her rave about for the entire past week, her lips stained a dark red and her feet adorned in a risky heel, loving the way his eyes raked over her body as she stepped out of the bathroom. And maybe she enjoyed the feeling of his hand on the small of her back a bit more than she should have as he led her to the elevator of the apartment complex, and maybe she should've stopped herself from trailing her fingers just below his belt buckle in the cab ride to the restaurant but she didn't. And then maybe she shouldn't have let him unzip her single article of clothing or let it fall to the floor back at her place, dinner a rushed affair because they could barely keep their hands off of each other, their eyes saying all the words they'd been too afraid to voice.

But standing here in the airport, his bags packed and his blue eyes pained, his lips tender on top of hers and his goodbye whispered, she _knew_ she should've stopped him from leaving- **or hell, maybe she should've just gone with.**


	13. Chapter 13

His pen ticked spastically against the keyboard, his blue orbs dashing everywhere except where they should be - the whiteboard and the scribbled leads, the mug shots of some dope dealer and his lively crew, the faces about to go down in a bust later the afternoon at his own hand. Hank's voice rattled through his eardrums, his head back in her New York apartment and her ridiculous amount of pillows, the soft scent of vanilla and coconut wafting off of her skin somewhere far out of his reach.

It'd been a month since his near breakdown, his snap from reality and descent into his own personal hell, dulled only by her kisses drifting across the bare skin of his abdomen or the scratches of her fingernails as she called out his name.

And he honestly wished he could say he was doing better - that the therapy down in the humid and sticky and nauseous church basement was making a dent in his insanity, that her occasional calls or messages checking in or on rare occasions a few brief and glorious minutes of a glimpse of his favorite dimples over a facetime call before slumber overtook the both of them were enough. But he knew somewhere in the pit of his stomach that they were only fooling themselves, that he wasn't getting any better and she wasn't getting any closer and add on the fact that he lied every single damn time he opened his mouth, that he pretended to be okay after his stray bullet had ended the life of that sweet and precious little girl it was a wonder he hadn't drank himself numb.

"Halstead, you ready?"

It was Adam, his eyes questioning and perhaps a little bit wary, their brawl at Molly's long forgotten by the both of them yet still somehow always lingering, always there. Both of them were dealing with shit way too heavy for the bullpen and perhaps that they were both too afraid to voice, to admit that they couldn't deal when they should have it handled. That maybe losing the girl hit harder than expected.

He gave a nod then, the pen tossed somewhere on his desk, his jacket swung over the henley that he swore still smelled like her though he'd put it through the wash more times than he could count, his badge looped on his belt buckle and his head back in the game or at least as far as he could get it, Hank's eyes flashing to him from across the room in a silent assessment and he was aware enough to give a nod of acknowledgement, a nod that signified he had his shit together, at least for the time being.

Still, sliding in driver's seat and not the passenger side stung more than it should've, Upton's terse smile of greeting a drastic change from Erin's usual snide remark, another reminder that things were slipping and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

X

He was better now, in that very moment, the buzz of alcohol running through his veins, the face of the mother as he handed over the tiny girl's necklace distant, not at the forefront of his head, running through like a sick highlight reel, over and over and over again. He jolted at the smack of a hand clasping his shoulder, fought to plaster a shaky grin on his lips under the jarring and inquisitive stare of Hermann, the purse of his lips to signify he was fine, that he had it under control, grinning along with Atwater's reenactment of some backyard basketball tournament with his younger brother though his focus was on the inhale of his breath. _Steady breathing. Stay controlled. Don't lose your shit, man._

He felt his phone buzz somewhere in his back pocket and even though it was probably _her_ , his eyes wandering over to the clock signifying the hour she usually hailed a cab back to her place, back to its silence and nearly empty refrigerator, he couldn't bring himself to care. She was slipping and so was he in more ways than one, the promise of when they would get to see the other again dwindling somewhere and then fading back to nothing because there wasn't a shot in hell that they could swing it. That he wouldn't feel like absolute hell boarding a plane to fly away from her again, leaving her behind in anxious and distraught tears, droplets of his own sliding down his freckle-dusted cheeks.

But then his self-loathing dissipated, swallowed up whole by the flashing red banner across the tv screen up on his left, a guttural scream forming somewhere in the pit of his stomach as he watched the explosion of a bomb some reporter had been ballsy enough to catch, the scrambling of people and the mass of destruction somewhere across the ocean in a country he refused to ever step foot in again, the same fraction of the world that had stolen pieces of him and pieces of his soul that he would never get back, that had stolen brothers and comrades and spit them back out like they were the scum of the earth - bloodied and battered and drained of life. His fingers tightened on his glass of whiskey before he realized what was really happening, the shattering of glass between his fingertips alerting Antonio's attention as well as the rest of the team, their eyes following his to the words 'terrorist attack on US soldiers', their jaws dropping and fists clenching though somewhere in the back of his head he knew their eyes had stubbornly trailed back to him, to their own broken blue-eyed soldier.

And there were Will's arms, enveloping him whole, scooping him up almost and ushering him through the throngs of people and out the door, the crisp fall air hitting his lungs and causing him to gasp, not realizing he hadn't been breathing, not realizing his hands were still stubbornly and ferociously shaking.

"Jay -"

"Will, I - I can't. _Hang on_." His eyes squeezed shut, his hands clenched again into fists, trying to slow his heartbeat down, trying to talk himself out of a panic attack, out of one of his weakest and most vulnerable states. _Not here, not now._

His phone vibrated again, this time incessantly, this time long enough to piss him off. And so he slid his finger across the screen, bracing himself for whoever's voice would come from the other end, knowing whatever it was wasn't going to be the exchanging of pleasantries.

"Jay?!" She was breathless, choked up, but it was her. His stomach lurched, dropped to somewhere near the toes of his shoes, his grip tightening on the device near his ear as he waited in a dreaded silence.

" _Jay, he's dead. Mouse is dead_."

The phone hit the concrete before his body did, shattering just like every single piece of his heart.


End file.
